....And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead

Finally, Trail of Dead.

Now, that was a very good gig. The sound was very good, the energy as strong as in the band’s early days. And the crowd was excellent as well, which with this kind of band can make the hell of a difference.

As for the set list, there was a good mix of Source, Tags and Code’s noise and World’s Apart grandeur, that mixed very well and gave a good, homogenous yet varied gig. And the first song, Ode To Isis, is truly a fantastic gig opener.

There was even, in the middle, one song from the latest album, So Divided, even though the band had said they wouldn’t play any of these (I must state here that I haven’t listened to it yet, so I have no idea what the controversy is about).

And the crowd was so eager to see the band that we were even treated with a second encore, one song played by Conrad Keely on its own.


To conclude, I think that Trail of Dead is a good band. They could be a great band, but only if:

- Jason Reece stops singing. Clearly, he is not a singer. OK, his scaffolding-climbing and crowd-surfing is entertaining, but 3 songs of him yelling are more than I can cope with. Plus he is an exceptional drummer, so why not stick to that? (Actually, it appears that there is an Anti-Reece club in England… That is maybe a little excessive!)

- They emphasize more on keyboards. My favourite songs are clearly the ones (such as The Best) where Keely plays keyboards and sings, as he is an excellent songwriter with that instrument.

With that, they should be able to fill in stadiums any time soon ;-)